Welcoming Animals Back to the City: Navigating the Tensions of Urban Livestock through Municipal Ordinances

Since the Industrial Revolution, livestock has been driven out of urban and semi-urban areas in the United States. Recently, calls for localizing the food system have led to a rise in urban agriculture, and livestock is finding its way back into the city. The return of livestock to urban areas is rife with tensions, including concerns about public health and challenges to dominant perspectives about the separation of urban from rural life. Through an analysis of municipal codes, this paper identifies how some communities have navigated challenges associated with welcoming livestock back into the city. Specifically, the paper analyzes how codes regulate livestock through prohibitions of certain types of animals, zoning to establish where in the municipality livestock can be kept, site-level restrictions that define property characteristics required to keep productive animals, and requirements for managing livestock and their 1 This is the “accepted” version of the manuscript before final formatting and editing. The final published manuscript citation is: Butler, W. H. (2012). Welcoming Animals Back to the City: Navigating the Tensions of Urban Livestock through Municipal Ordinances. Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems and Community Development, 2(2), 1-23.